Home ยป Uncategorized

Reduce Minecraft Screen Time โ€“ Hereโ€™s How!

Reduce screen time these school holidays with awesome activities that kids will actually want to do!

Hands up if youโ€™re living in a world of Red Stone Dust and Diamond Pick Axes! If youโ€™ve got a Minecraft lover in your house, youโ€™ll know just how much screen time it takes to build the ultimate house. Reduce screen time these holidays with fun activities that kids will want to do! Set up your own fossicking day, complete with mining for real gems โ€“ reduce screen time for a whole day for the price of a few rocks! Get kids excited about geology, not just Minecraft!
For parents of mini-Minecrafters, hereโ€™s a great day out, that is 100% Minecraft compliant โ€“ with a little bit of hidden education included!  This can also be the BEST Minecraft themed birthday party ever.

How to organise a Minecraft themed fossicking expedition in Brisbane

Minecraft Fossicking Trip - No screen time
How better to put an end to summer screen time than getting kids out to do their own mining? There are no working mines near Brisbane that can be toured, so you might just have to prepare your own mining expedition!

You will need:

A collection of โ€œsoftโ€ rocks, pyrites, geodes, crystals or semi-precious gems

Two kids on treasure hunt
Ideally these will be about the size of a small fist so geodes are the perfect choice. Geodes (aka Thunder Eggs) are available affordably online or from your local Lapidary Club. Get them online for about $10 a kg plus postage. Geodes are thought to be โ€œlava bubblesโ€ and teaching kids about their origins is all about pre-historic landscapes, volcanoes and other fun, Minecraft-relevant stuff. Geodes contain โ€œmystery crystalsโ€ from purple amethysts to bright orange agate, calcite, pyriteโ€ฆ. to just about every coloured โ€œrockโ€ found in Minecraft. The most common find is a cryptocrystalline quartz โ€“ that sparkles just like real diamonds!

Iron Pyrite (foolโ€™s gold) is soft and crumbly, ideal for kids to explore on a fossicking trip (and a teeny tiny fraction of the price of real gold!). Muscovite and other โ€œmicasโ€ are good options as theyโ€™re full of beautiful crystals and easy to break up into smaller pieces. You can find very affordable rocks online โ€“ especially if you shop around a little.

While youโ€™re at it, you may wish to pick up a few fossils of creatures and dinosaurs that once lived in Queensland. This is a great way to pique kidโ€™s interest in geology ever further and maybe even spark an interest in a visit to the museum! Howโ€™s that for a great alternative to screen time! Basic gastropod fossils start at about $10 but you can find some very impressive pieces for a little more. Read more about REAL Queensland dinosaurs here.

The all-important Minecraft Pickaxe (and eye protection)

Minecraft Pixaxe for real
Rather than arm a small child with a real pickaxe, a welderโ€™s chipper or surveyorโ€™s pick offers a safer option. A welderโ€™s chipper (or welderโ€™s hammer) is approximately $8 from your local hardware store, looks just like a Minecraft Pickaxe and is just about the right weight for a 6-10 year old to use. Of course, youโ€™ll need to do it under very close supervision. Donโ€™t forget to pick up eye protection too โ€“ protective glasses are available from about $5.

A towel and a hammer

If you choose harder rocks youโ€™ll need to break them yourself. Youโ€™ll need a towel to wrap the rock in, and a hammer to smash it. Geodes are ideal as they are soft enough for a school aged child to break open themselves.

Screen Free Activities Brisbane
A bucket and spade

Youโ€™ll need a bucket big enough to carry all the spoils back to the car!

A map of your secret gem mining location

Treasure Map for screen free holiday activities
The perfect place to stage your Minecraft fossicking activity is a local beach. We used the Shorncliffe Headland because the cliffs are carved from beautifully patterned sandstone and feature packed! Simply find a secluded patch of sand and bury your geodes and other rocks about a foot deep. Tip: Make sure the tide is out! The sand will be easy for kids to โ€œdig upโ€. Before setting out on your fossicking expedition, print a map from Google Earth and mark the spot to dig with an X. Encourage kids to follow the map, taking note of geographical features and rocks along the way.
If you can get another โ€œMinecraft Mumโ€ keen to join you, one can watch the kids on the beach as the other buries the treasure. Letโ€™s face it, youโ€™re surrounded by mums trying to reduce screen time these holidays โ€“ why not make a day of it?

Mining for crystals and geodes

Allow children to explore the โ€œdigโ€ themselves. Allow them to do the digging, find the geodes and speculate on what will be โ€œinsideโ€. While the answer may be โ€œredstoneโ€ to them, encourage them to associate Minecraft finds with โ€œreal world termsโ€. Once youโ€™ve found your bounty of treasure (remember to count how many you bury!) , kids can use their โ€œMinecraft Pickaxeโ€ to smash open the geodes or crumble up the soft rocks (if they choose to do so). Take extra care to stay safe as geodes tend to โ€œexplodeโ€ open!

Screen free activities for the holidays

Mandatory screen timeโ€ฆ but not as you know it!

Once back home with all your treasures, allow kids to jump on the computer to look up their finds. Encourage them to label each rock with its name and display it on a bookshelf or in their room. Alternatively, kids might like to use their new found jewels to make their own jewellery โ€“ another perfect way to reduce screen time these school holidays!

 

Want it all done for you? Take a day trip to Thunder Bird Park in Mt Tamborine

Reduce Screen Time on the school holidays - go geode hunting
Thunder Bird Park in Mt Tamborine is an excellent day trip for kids. Itโ€™s an easy walk, making it suitable for a โ€œgrandparents outingโ€ these school holidays too! A natural spot for finding ancient geodes, kids will be able to collect their own โ€œbucketโ€ (for a fee) and then have them cut and polished (for another fee) into absolutely stunning thunder eggs. Thereโ€™s nothing like a day trip to the Gold Coast to reduce screen time. Check out other Gold Coast day trip ideas here.

Photo of author

Janine Mergler

Janine Mergler is a veteran Queensland teacher, graduating from QUT with a BEd majoring in Social Sciences. After many years in the classroom, Janine moved on to academia. She has proudly trained new generations of teachers in her role as a lecturer at Queensland University of Technology Faculty of Education. She has also worked in the Queensland Government as an education specialist, developing education resources and delivering community awareness programs to help families conserve water. Currently she is the owner and editor of Families Magazine, a publication specifically targeted at parents who value a quality education for children.ย  Janine leads a team of professionals who write about family lifestyle, early childhood, schools and education information and family-friendly events.

16 thoughts on “Reduce Minecraft Screen Time โ€“ Hereโ€™s How!”

  1. Not sure I’d be giving my grandkids those picks. They look pretty dangerous? My grandson loves thunder eggs, we took him to that thunder egg park and he had a ball. This is a great idea but I think four might be a bit young for the pickaxes.

    Reply
  2. I love that spot in Shorncliffe. My kids take ‘adventure walks” down there. Be careful though, we’ve seen sharks off that beach before.

    Reply
  3. I am totally going to do this. My son is Minecraft mad and so are most of his mates. I have written down all the stuff. Will get it in time for the holidays. The long, endless summer ahead ๐Ÿ˜‰

    Reply
  4. Roy and Ellie,

    The kids in the pictures are six. We carefully supervised them (the accompanying little sister wasn’t allowed a pickaxe!) and there was no moment where there was anything to be concerned about. In fact, the girl was really impressive, she was quite the deft hand with a hammer. She impressed herself and was very confident by the end of the play. It was lovely. But I recommend proper eye protection for everyone.

    Reply
  5. Amber_Dave – yep that’s it. BUT, we got ours for $8 each at Mitre 10 in Sandgate. I think maybe this seller is inflating prices ๐Ÿ™‚

    Reply
  6. Holly – the only reason we chose a beach was because it was easy to dig – and also it didn’t look like we’d been digging there beforehand. My dad did the burying ๐Ÿ™‚ He wiped the sand over so it looked untouched, which just added to the magic of it all – the kids were so excited! Really though, you could do it in a bucket and they’d still have fun!

    Reply
  7. I love this idea and started to search out some geodes, but the only ones I can find are significantly more expensive! Any hints and tips on which direction to look for the ones you write about?

    Reply

Leave a comment